Michael Fassbender Is Ridley Scott & Cormac McCarthy’s ‘Counselor’

With months of rumors and whispers around the Internet having left people wondering exactly which upcoming film hot-in-demand actor Michael Fassbender would be appearing in next – with titles like the RoboCop reboot and Darren Aronofsky’s Noah retelling being included in the mix – we finally have a definitive answer: The Counselor, directed by Ridley Scott and based on the original screenplay by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Cormac McCarthy (The Road, No Country for Old Men).

Reports that Scott wanted to reunite with Fassbender on The Counselor – as the two recently collaborated on this year’s anticipated sci-fi (prequel?) flick, Prometheus – leaked out just a couple weeks ago (at the time of writing this). Now, Deadline has confirmed that Fassbender is indeed “committed” to the McCarthy script.

The Counselor is a film that’s coming together at a surprisingly rapid rate, especially when you consider how long we’ve been hearing both Scott and Fassbender’s names linked to other projects. McCarthy’s agents were likewise taken aback when the acclaimed American novelist delivered the Counselor script back in December 2011 (they were expecting a new book) and have been scrambling to get this flick on the fast-track to production ever since.

Now that Scott has filled the role of The Counselor‘s namesake, he is reportedly looking ahead to fill the part of the villain. Early rumored candidates include the ever-busy Jeremy Renner, Bradley Cooper, and Brad Pitt – who, as it were, helped jump-start his career by appearing in Scott’s Thelma & Louise AND is already slated to appear alongside Fassbender again (after Inglourious Basterds) in Twelve Years a Slave. Still, for the time being, all three of those stars should be considered equally viable candidates.

Insiders are describing The Counselor as “‘No Country for Old Men’ on steroids [and] one of McCarthy’s most disturbing and powerful works.” Suffice it to say, with that thematic synopsis, Scott at the helm and Fassbender in the lead, the film should have no difficulty in securing an accomplished actor to play the antagonist. Nor should it take long for Scott to convince two worthy actresses to portray the female characters “who intrude to play leading roles” in McCarthy’s new dark tale about a respectable man getting involved in dirty crime business.

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Principal photography on The Counselor is tentatively slated to begin by May 2012, with a late 2013 theatrical release date most likely in mind.